I’ve been working in children, youth and family ministry for 23 years, and in that time, there is one thing I have learned: The longer I do this, the more clueless I am. Seriously. When I started out, I was quite certain I knew and understood the whole thing. I knew what to do…I had…
What is maturity anyway? Take a look again at the characteristics of a spiritually mature youth from the EYM study. Demonstrates a Personal Spirituality Believes God is present in the world Acts out of a commitment of faith Is active with God’s people Possesses a Positive, Hopeful Spirit Lives out a life of service Lives…
While it may sound like the Exemplary Youth Ministry study was just about these 121 congregations who have it all together, that’s far from a complete picture. The EYM study is really all about your church. In the years since the study was completed we’ve discovered that all-important transferability factor. Churches who take on these…
The term “sweet spot” is often used in sports. It is that place on the face of a golf club that creates the best possible shot or on the baseball bat that sends the ball over the center field fence. Have you ever thought of having a “sweet spot” in ministry? I can think of…
One of the key ingredients to effective youth ministry is that the ministry is supported by the senior pastor. I have found this to be so true. I will never forget the time I was sitting in worship listening to my pastor’s sermon. I don’t remember the text he was preaching on, but I do…
When I first started in professional youth ministry, I simply wanted to create an environment of relationship and “church fun” that mirrored my own experience as a teen. While that worked on some levels, I was pretty sure something else was happening that I could not name — I had no language for it. After…
Exemplary Youth Ministry is really about leadership on multiple levels — your leadership as the youth minister, your adult leaders. One of the key findings of the EYM study is that the pastor is the chief youth minister. A senior pastor who champions and keeps youth ministry central to the congregation’s culture is critical. Now…
In Disconnected: Parenting Teens in a MySpace World, Chap and Dee Clark take on a popular cultural myth that, sadly, most of us in youth ministry buy hook, line, and sinker: simply, that teenage youth do not want to spend time with their parents. We often run into the smokescreen when recruitment for small groups…
[first posted in March 2009] Earlier this week, I was reminded of an article I read about the Facebook generation. In this article Gary Hamel lists 12 ideas that the Facebook generation has toward the world. (For the full article: http://bit.ly/aXXHxG.) It’s an interesting list to think about when we talk about youth ministry. As…
I was talking to a friend this week who wondered if all the hype about Exemplary Youth Ministry wasn’t just that. He was not discounting all the good stuff we’ve been blogging about but he did wonder if we were just moving on to the next new thing, the latest fad, the buzz in youth…
Moving into a youth ministry marked by mature faith markers is slow work sometimes. But living in Jesus’ promise in Matthew 28 to be with us always to the end of the age strengthens us for the upward call of discipleship and evangelism that comes with the promise. For me the picture below is one…
I thought I was just going to dinner with my wife and kids at the Chili’s by my house one night. As the hostess seated us, we walked past a table, and there sat an adult and a student from our church — one of our Life Teams. There they were, just having dinner, catching…
EYM levels the playing field: We used to think that great youth ministry was built pretty much exclusively around a dynamic youth minister, so the church who found that person won! Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work, and they didn’t win. Here’s some of what that faulty thinking produced: A revolving door of youth ministers. A…
For years I have struggled to move beyond the “if we build it they will come” programmatic formula for youth ministry. In my quest for fidelity to the great commission I’ve asked if counting heads in our programs is not bearing fruit (as both my experience and studies like Christian Smith’s Soul Searching tell us)…then…
Recently, I was asked, “If you were to go back and do youth ministry again, how would what you know now change what you would do?” I had quite a few things on my list, (hindsight is amazing!) and here are two of them that are directly related to the Exemplary Youth Ministry study results. So,…
